The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection is Wang Xizhi's masterpiece.
Tips
history
His 353 CE 《兰亭集序》(Lantingji Xu) is called 天下第一行书 ('the finest running-script work under heaven'). Tang emperor 唐太宗 loved it so much he had the original buried with him — every copy surviving today is a later tracing.
culture
The idiom 入木三分 ('to penetrate three-tenths of an inch into the wood') comes from a legend that his brushstrokes sank that deep into a wooden board.
